Current competing solutions on the market today are hand-held remote methane leak detectors (RMLD) which detect gases by shooting stationary beams of both IR and visible laser light into a sampling space for the purpose of gas detection and device aiming, respectively. The visible laser in today's RMLD's output a single stationary beam, which results in a single visible dot into the sampling space.
A detecting light beam source (IR laser) when intersecting a gas leak, a RMLD audibly signals to the user that a gas has been detected. At this point, the user can move closer to a leak but the single detecting light beam must continue to intersect the gas plume cloud. One problem with this solution is that gas plume clouds can dissipate making the RMLD appear to give unstable intermittent results. In addition, the RMLD must continuously be moved back and forth by hand in order to hunt for the leak. The RMLD readings that are provided to the user of the RMLD is gas concentration detected but the actual location of the leak, demarcation of leaks in-field sample space, shape of the gas plume, quantity of gas (rate of leakage) is not provided to the user as could be achieved by a scanning laser (and other “rastering” techniques, including, for example, solid state LiDAR and polygon mirrors).
For example, known RMLD products emit one IR (Infrared) beam and can only detect a gas along the IR beam path.